Vogue India resorted to a fashion spread cliché*--real people posed with expensive merch. But, as many real Indians are extremely poor, the NY Times felt called upon to report about how unseemly this was:
The juxtaposition between poverty and growing wealth presents an unsavory dilemma for luxury goods makers jumping into India: How does one sell something like a $1,000 handbag in a country where most people will never amass that sum of money in their lives, and many are starving?
On the other hand, is a country, city, state, region to be defined only by those things or issues that the NY Times deems suitable? Kanika Gahlaut, a columnist at the Mail Today, was appalled by the insensitivity of the photos, but the EIC, Priya Tanna, suggested that everyone "lighten up". India's luxury market is growing fast, and purveyors of such goods are always looking for new customers.
And as India's poor co-existed for centuries with some of the most conspicuous consumers the world has ever known, it seems a little late to suddenly notice that "Ohmigod--there's begging in the streets outside Louis Vuitton!"
If Burberry was distressed by British chavs sporting their trademark plaid, how will they react to the $200 umbrella in the photo?
* Remember the Diana Ross vehicle, Mahogany?
**ANTM not only posed the contestants with the homeless, they found a new wannabe in the extras.
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